


And A Star To Guide Her By

by Sokorra



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Captains and Their Ships, F/M, Gen, M/M, Spoilers, Star Trek: Generations, gen but references outside ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokorra/pseuds/Sokorra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a tradition among Star fleet's ship builders to incorporate a piece of the previous ship into the new ship that would carry its name.  The Captains of the Enterprise ponder the soul of their ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The NX-01

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeredithBrody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/gifts), [foreveranna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreveranna/gifts).



> I started this a long time ago. Some of the characters are not cooperating as well, so I'm listing this as complete only because each section is a complete one-shot, and I know it will be 6 parts. I originally was going to have another one with Data, but decided against it.
> 
> Most of this is canon, but I did make one AU and that was to ignore the book end for Erika Hernandez.

There was a secret tradition amongst Starfleet's ship builders. When a ship was named after a previous ship, an element of the old ship was placed in the new. A way of allowing the comforting 'soul' of the ship to continue on.

Very few people outside the engineering corp knew about this tradition, and even among engineers it was a secret until they reached higher rank. It wasn't a secret because it was classified or the upper ranks just didn't want the lower ones to know. It simply was. A tradition that was almost sacred.

Of course on the ships themselves the Captain knew. The Ship was most closely known by its Captain and its Chief Engineer. They both knew exactly what had been taken from the previous vessel and where it had been placed. 

As it so happened, on the NX-01 they had the Flight Altitude reader from the Space Shuttle embedded into the wall of an observation deck, used only for the senior staff when they needed solitude that their own offices could not provide. It usually could be found with the door open and all were invited to wall through the thin hall that had windows that looked out into space and low lighting as not to dim the visibility of the stars. On the internal wall was a wall-long couch, not very deep, but enough for someone to comfortable sit on and stare out into space.

This was where Jonathan Archer found himself. Porthos was by his side of course, happy for the walk. But he seemed to understand the Captain's need for the calm solitude of the observatory and hopped onto the couch at the edge near the door they had entered. Archer walked the length of the observatory a few times as he thought over his speech for the ceremony the next day before settling down on the couch himself. Glancing up he found himself staring at the Eight Ball of Enterprise.

There was something to be said about staring at history. Travis' piloting console had equipment more than a century more advanced, but it remained at the same time remarkably similar to the black and white ball that rolled slightly in its container.

It wasn't often noticed, and very few knew it was actually from a shuttle. But there was something calming about seeing something that had survived that long, and still was relaying the information it had been built to rely.

Enterprise was on even keel. Smooth riding, thanks to the man at the wheel and the engines carefully taken care of by the engineers down below. Men had watched the mechanism before him 170 years ago, had adjusted their headings according to it. Just as Travis trusted his console to read him the information that kept him from running into a planet at warp.

Of course the men who had used the device in front of him were simply trying to see if they could get this machine off the ground. Bring it back and put it back out there again. To see if the Shuttle was even a viable option. The mid-1970s if Archer remembered his history right. They had still been landing on the moon only a year or so earlier, and They were planning on longer missions, more science more exploring of the space around them.

Enterprise had cleared the way for the rest of the fleet, much as she was now. Exploring, testing, telling the humans it was interested with what needed to change. 

He smiled for a moment, thinking of his wife, and her own ship. Wondered if she ever glanced at the piece of Columbia that had made its way into the ship. He frowned again. That hadn't been quite as happy a history. Whatever had been chosen had been taken from wreckage, not carefully removed from a whole ship which remained in a museum to teach people about their history.

He stood, walking over to the device, and placed a hand on it, wondering if the men who had been on the shuttle had ever done the same. He didn't quite feel alone anymore. As if the spirit of the last ship was still there, still flying along side her newer shell.

Enterprise's heart was in space, as it should be.

"Come on, Porthos," he whispered, not wanting to disturb the quiet, "I think I finally got an idea of what to say. Maybe even T'Pol will approve of it." The dog tilted his head as if to show what he thought of the idea and jumped off the couch and followed his human out the door.


	2. The NCC-1701

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christopher Pike finds out something new from the new Engineer.

Christopher Pike loved his ship. It seemed a shame to leave her, but it was time to move on. The Enterprise's new Captain would arrive in the morning, a young man named Kirk. Only 32, and already a captain. Pike could only hope that Kirk took care of the ship he loved.

He felt old, though he was only in his late fifties. They wanted him to come home to pass on his knowledge to future officers of Starfleet. He had said yes, because he felt old, and traveling with his ship wasn’t making him feel any younger. Some Captains couldn’t get the space dust out of their bones, but it seemed he was one of the few who ran out and needed to settle back down on solid ground.

He paused in Engineering on his final tour of the ship, listening to her engine as it cycled through on Warp 2 on its way back to Earth. In an hour or so they would slow down to impulse for entry into the system. 

“Good Evening, Sir,” came a voice from beside him and he turned in surprise to find the relatively new Chief of Engineering. Olsen had retired a few months ago, choosing to stay on one of the colony worlds on their way home. Scott had come well recommended. 

“Scott,” he responded, with a nod of his head before turning his attention to the wall hanging on the wall in front of him. “Do you know what this is.” he asked, pointing with his glass of brandy.

“Its a injector from the Warp-5 engine,” Scott replied.

“You know, it took me awhile to figure out why they did it. Why they always put a piece of the old ship on the new ship. Never made sense to me. It doesn’t serve a purpose. Except it does. Do you know what is, Commander?”

“It’s the soul, sir.”

“The Soul?” Pike knew what he meant, but he was curious to hear what the young engineer would have to say.

“It reminds us that this name has had a history long before us and will outlive us, but we are apart of it. Did you see the carvings sir?”

Pike turned and looked at the old injector closer and found something etched into it. He had never noticed the carving before.

In loving memory of Charles Tucker III, who kept the Enterprise going where no man had gone before.

“That was the first engineer.”

“I remember,” Pike murmured. It had been in the Starfleet History course. After Zephram Cochrane and Henry Archer, most of the basics of warp flight theory and practice had been written by Charles Tucker. His accounts of the expanse mission were still read in the Academy today. He had died using the Enterprise as a weapon to protect people.

“Its kind of a nice thing to know, that we weren’t out here first, even when we are.”

“Optimistic viewpoint, Scott.”

“Yes, Sir.” Pike nodded at the Lt. Commander “I’ll leave you to pick up the torch Tucker left behind.”


	3. The NCC-1701-A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirk and Scotty discuss the newest addition to their old-new ship.

It was taking him a while to adjust to the new ship. Perhaps it was the fact the ship wasn’t broken in, was still adjusting unlike the previous Enterprise. Still had its kinks and knots that needed to be taken care of. It still felt like Enterprise, but it so different at the same time.

“How’s it going, Scotty?” He asked as he came across his chief engineer in the dining room, the table covered in schematics and blueprints. Old style, with tubes to hold them when they were rolled up. The Scot looked up and grinned at Kirk, totally in his element.

“She’s a beaut, despite the problems,” Scotty replied, a tone of love in his voice. Kirk smiled. He could understand that. The Enterprise caused that type of sentiment abundantly, although not as strongly with the lower ranks who hadn’t quite the history with the ship as the senior staff. Which is why Kirk tried to hold on to his senior staff as much as he could. No one understood his love for that ship like those six people.

Seven people. Christine was apart of the group. She made quite sure he knew that when they talked after her demotion for Bones. Of course that had been before she had become integral to him for another reason. 

“Think you can iron them out?”

“Aye, but it will take some time, Captain.” Scotty shook his head. “They pushed her out of dock too fast. Some of this is simply because she wasn’t given a proper pre-flight check. Careless, the lot of them.” Kirk’s grin continued as Scotty started to mumble about the current class of engineers. Too confident in the their computer consoles they didn’t check it out themselves.

“Make sure to write them a scathing note, Scotty. I’m sure they deserve it.”

“That they do.” He pointed on the schematics for the Officer and enlisted lounges, as well as a few of the Senior Officer offices. “They put the old NX-01’s translation matrix on display in Nyota’s office.”

“Ah, the tradition continues.” He remembered that the old Enterprise had encased in the engineering room a warp injector. He had always liked the tradition. It was the last part installed, often as a decorative piece, to carry the spirit of the old ship to its new form. It was perhaps a bit fanciful on the behalf of the Starfleet engineering corp, but he understood the reasoning. It was the same reason Captains called there ships ‘she’ and acted as if it was their wife rather than just a vehicle.

It was also a sign that the previous ship had served its time and came home. Not all ships did. The Enterprise that Kirk previously captained hadn’t. THere was nothing from that ship that would continue on to this one. So they were forced to go back to the old NX-01, a ship that sat as a museum piece, showing the origins of Starfleet, of the Coalition, and eventually the Federation. The first Warp ship named Enterprise. 

The NX-01 held a piece of the shuttle from two hundred years before. A flight ordinance piece hung in the observatory room in between two windows. He had seen it once when he toured the ship as a child, along with his brother. 

Then when they had built the NCC-1701 almost a century later they had placed a piece of the NX-01,an warp-five level warp injector that was displayed in a column of the engineering room. Most people who filtered through other then the engineers and the captain would have no idea what it was or really its purpose. 

“Her voice this time.” Scotty then looked up at the Captain with a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. “One of them anyway. How does Christine feel about her voice coming out of the bulkheads?” 

“She hasn’t said.” It was...odd, if that was the right word, to hear Christine Chapel’s voice answer him when he made a request of the computer. Probably worse for Christine, who had just returned after several years as a Emergency OPs Commander. 

Of course she had warning - she had volunteered her voice after all. The rest of them had gotten on board and were confused when the computer started to answer in Christine’s voice. 

Bones had gotten a kick out of it. He had teased Christine saying if he had wanted to hear her voice, he would have dragged her onboard (the fact that he eventually did did not seem to matter.). He teased Kirk about the fact that his ship and his girlfriend were connected now, making the whole “The Captain is married to his ship” a little awkward.

Kirk took it in stride, telling Bones it was better Chris’ voice then McCoy’s. Spock had piped in to agree, claiming he didn’t think the matrix could quite get the phrases McCoy so loved to use.

He loved his friends and hearing them arguing behind his head was as comforting as seeing the stars passing by his window. He clasped a hand on Scotty’s shoulder and told him goodnight, continuing his tour of the ship while letting Scotty get back to what he loved to do - work with Enterprise’s engines.


	4. NCC 1701-B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Harriman has a no good, very bad, terrible day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some odd reason, in my mind Harriman always seemed like the dorky (in a bad way) captain. Like he didn't know what he was doing. But after reading his Memory Alpha page, I think my mental picture might be wrong. So I tried to write a more competent Harriman then I remember. 
> 
> Andrew, of course, is a original character.

John Harriman had always dreamed of being Captain. Of following the footsteps of people like Archer, Hernandez, and Kirk. He grew up with ship models, and piloting textbooks. He couldn’t remember a time he didn’t want that, didn’t dream of that.

But standing here, looking through the force field that kept the air from being sucked out of the giant hole inside his ship, he felt like he had failed. He felt like a heavy weight was on his chest and he was stuck in some sort of nightmare.

John Harriman: The man who got Kirk killed. 

The logical side of him told him he couldn’t have known, that he couldn’t have done anything different to get a different ending. But the overwhelming thought was that he was guilty of killing Kirk as much as that space oddity was.

People swarmed around him. Repair crews, refugees, the rest of the Guest crew from the ceremony. His first captaincy had already had its first casualty and he couldn’t seem to move from his spot.

“Lad, you need to get up to the bridge.” John turned to see Admiral Scott standing a few feet away. The grief was still clear on his face, but the older man seemed focused on keeping the repair crews in order. “Your ship is in distress, your place is on the bridge.”

He nodded. He took one last look at the force field and turned to go towards the lift. As the doors closed he hesitated before pushing the button, sending him to the lounge instead of the bridge. There was one more trip he had to make.

The lounge was empty when he arrived, the buffet still sat waiting to be devoured by guests. IT was only supposed to be a ceremonial voyage. They hadn’t had a complete crew, and not everything was installed.

At one end was a display. At the top of the display held the portraits of all five men who had preceded John as captain of this ship under Starfleet. Jonathan Archer, Robert April, Christopher Pike, James T. Kirk, and Spock. Below it was as a series of items, from previous ships. A flight path simulator from the shuttle, a piece of the translation matrix that became the foundation of the Universal Translator. And finally from the last ship, the ship Kirk had captained till its docking, a decorative ship’s wheel with the names of several naval vessels over time that had shared the name.

He had chosen that piece himself. When he and Andrew had toured the ship, after he had been named Captain,he had seen the wheel and knew that was the piece that needed to carry the ship onto her new path.

He wondered if the ship knew yet that her last captain had been taken. While he was skeptical about ships having spirits, his husband wasn’t. Andrew had told him tale after tale of ships who would have quirks, and responses that showed that they had a bit of life in them as well.

Would Enterprise forgive him, he wondered. There really wasn’t anything he could have done. They had been ill equipped for this rescue mission, and he had tried his best. But would that mean anything in the end to the ship he captained?

It was ironic, he thought. He had set out on this voyage to impress the man he considered hero, only to watch him die. The man who seemed impossible to beat, the space cowboy who survived battles and charmed diplomats with his cunning and determination. The man who could have done half a million times before finally had his last stand.

And it was on John Harriman’s watch that it happened.

He took a deep breath, spending one more moment in the silence with his ship and then returned to the lounge. Maybe his portrait would never join the others as some of the heroes of Starfleet’s Enterprise, but it was still his ship and he need to make sure it got home. He needed to take care of his ship, the refugees and his crew and then maybe one day join in on the journey the other men had started.

Kirk’s death would not be in vain.


	5. The NCC-1701-C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel Garrett decides to have a party to lift the spirits of her crew.

The observation lounge was decorated festively in the Denebian holiday spirit, which with its reds, greens and whites reminded Rachel Garrett of the Earth Christmas. Members of her crew cycled through the room as people switched shifts, took breaks and in general enjoyed themselves. Rachel herself had taken the night shift, which she had made only strictly necessary personnel to give the rest of the ship’s crew a chance to relax.

The skirmishes with the Romulans had been turning up lately and the tension was still in the air. They had all needed to let off steam, and this seemed the best way to do it. She would probably have to turn in a full report on while a patrol ship, even if it was a flagship like Enterprise, would have a party in the middle of a crisis but she felt confident in her decision to put the well being of her crew first.

She had a glass of water in her hands, not wanting to get under the influence before her shift, and smiled as she watched her crew enjoy themselves. It seemed to have worked.

Castillo was eagerly telling his audience some grand story about his grandfather during Kirk’s time. Apparently Castillos had served on Enterprise since the NX-01. His great-great grandfather had been a ship’s chef on Archer’s ship, and his Grandfather had served on Kirk’s crew as a engineer.

Other groups of people were spread out across the room. Frederiks was with a bunch who were jamming with various instruments in one corner, Johnson and Rogers were arguing over early 21st century short film studies. In general the room was filled with good cheer.

She turned to look out the windows. Two long windows sat with a display pillar in the middle. Space was on display for everyone to see. In between was a display of models of the former ships named Enterprise. A piece of history to carry on tradition. A piece of the Enterprise B’s external hall had been melted down and made into a plaque that now adorned her office, the true token to history. 

She wondered sometimes if she had the wisdom that the men before had apparently had. Archer had managed to stave off war, which would have cost the universe the formation of the Federation. Pike and April had explored new worlds, Kirk had traveled to places and done things no one had ever done before. Harriman had brought peace, even if it hadn’t quite lasted as long as he might have hoped.

She hoped that when the next Captain of the Enterprise looked at the History display that would grace his ship, he would add her to that illustrious list of Captains.

“Hey, no sad thoughts, Captain,” Castillo stated, suddenly standing beside her. “Captain’s orders I believe.” She smiled at him, shaking her head in agreement. She had said that hadn’t she?’

“Well, then why don’t you tell me this story I’ve been hearing about your Great Grandfather and brownies.”

“Oh, that’s a great one. Well, Captain,” Castillo said, leading her to sit at one of the seats adorning the walls, “It all starts with Jon Archer and his sweet tooth. The Captain liked brownies. Especially when his wife was visiting. Well, one day My Great-Grandfather Ramon had left the brownie dough alone for a second to answer a question about the meal for the day and some enterprising - if you pardon the pun - young ensign decided to add some special herbal ingredients.”

“Well, that’s not good.” She laughed, and Castillo smile grew. He was young, and liked to impress people but she could see the good soul, and the competent officer behind the humor. “What happened?” 

She always did love a good story.


	6. The NCC-1701 D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picard goes through the rumble of the -D at the close of Star Trek: Generations.

Picard shuffled through the rubble with a heavy heart. So much had happened today, he couldn’t help but feel a weight of sadness on his shoulders.  His brother and nephew were now dead, he had buried James T. Kirk, and the ship he had given the last 8 years of his life to now lay in pieces due to the works of a mad man intent on finding his personal paradise even if it meant destroying planets.

He had been overjoyed to learn that most of the crew had only minor injuries.  There were a few critical from the lower levels, and only three deaths.  With a crew of over a thousand along with families that had been downright miraculous.  If it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of his senior officers, and the steady calm behavior of the rest of his crew this could have ended even more tragically than it already was.

He picked up a piece of a model of the Enterprise B, and couldn’t help but think of Kirk, who now lay under a pile of rocks. He had informed the Captain of the rescue vessel, and they were talking to Starfleet about the proper procedure to properly bury Kirk.  He still had a few relatives alive back on earth, an elderly nephew named Peter.  There was a chance that he would remain buried on the planet he had died on, but also equally possible they would remove his remains and transport them back to earth for a burial of the family’s choosing.

Admiral Chekov had already messaged that he wanted to talk to Picard personally on his return.  

He tossed the model aside, searching for his album. It would take weeks to remove all the debris, and as personal items were found, they would be returned if possible.  However, he couldn’t leave without this.  He could hear Riker on the other side of the wall, moving debris to help find the album, which may have flown out of the room as the ship crashed.

He paused as he lifted the next time out.  It was a plaque from Harriman’s ship.  C had been so damaged, there had been nothing to retrieve.  Instead Harriman himself had chosen a piece from his ship.  A plague that had stood over the part of the ship where James T. Kirk had died.  It mentioned the 300 or so people who had died in the nexus, as well as Kirk’s efforts to save them.  It was perhaps the closest to a gravestone as Kirk got.

How ironic, Picard thought as he placed it carefully on the shelf, that he had seen that plaque on  a daily basis for almost a decade yet today it had slipped his mind.  Even after hearing about the Enterprise B, Kirk, and the Nexus, he hadn’t thought about it once.  Yet here it was, a plaque that commemorates those who died.

Perhaps it could be put on the Enterprise-E whenever the ship was commissioned.  He couldn’t imagine Starfleet not making another ship.  There was something immortal about the ship, something that shouldn’t slip away in the night.  There should always be a ship named Enterprise leading the way into the great unknown.

He could only hope that he had Kirk’s courage to let someone else take the wheel when his time to hand over Enterprise came.


End file.
